Due Process?

In 2006 I wrote an article called Due Process of The Law – What Does it Mean? The Changing Face of Due Process in the Anti-Terrorism Era for what was then Associated Content and is now Yahoo! Voices. It has always been, and still is, my most popular article on the site.

Now, six years later, I’m wondering if it is time to revisit the subject. To examine what has changed since I wrote the original article. And, I am also trying to decide if the subject needs more than an article. Possibly an eBook.

What do you think?

Sid and Nancy Collector’s Edition Only on Blu-Ray?

Sid and Nancy 25^th Anniversary Collector’s Edition was released on December 27, 2011. When I heard this I was very disturbed to find that it seems to be only on Blu-Ray. But, after reading this review it sounds like the 1998 edition (Criterion Collection) has better special features.

I saw Sid and Nancy for the first time when I was 13 or 14 and it has been my favorite movie ever since. It was also the first DVD I bought when I got a computer that played DVDs, before I even had a DVD player for my TV. When I heard that this new edition was only on Blu-Ray, I actually started to think that I might have to get a Blu-Ray player just so I could see it. I’m glad I don’t have to worry about that now.  

Author Page on Facebook

I have finally created an author page on Facebook. I should have done it a long time ago, but I just wasn’t making the connection. So, hopefully I will see you there!

Insurance Must Cover Contraceptives – Yay!

An article on the New York Times website, January 20, 2012, says:

The Obama administration said Friday that most health insurance plans must cover contraceptives for women free of charge, and it rejected a broad exemption sought by the Roman Catholic Church for insurance provided to employees of Catholic hospitals, colleges and charities. The Obama administration said Friday that most health insurance plans must cover contraceptives for women free of charge, and it rejected a broad exemption sought by the Roman Catholic Church for insurance provided to employees of Catholic hospitals, colleges and charities.

I think this is rare, good news. Generally, I’m against the government getting involved in healthcare, especially when it comes to micromanaging care, but this is a very good thing.

It does not apply to churches. This is like the discrimination laws for hiring. Churches can discriminate when hiring based on religious beliefs. I can live with that. It makes sense. But, Catholic colleges and hospitals do not get that luxury under the Civil Rights Act.

Also from the Times Article:

The National Association of Evangelicals said that as a result of the White House decision, “Employers with religious objections to contraception will be forced to pay for services and procedures they believe are morally wrong.”

Um, no. They will be forced to pay for insurance that covers it. How is that “paying for contraception” anymore than if their employees spend the paychecks they give them on contraception?

Either way, it is indirect, and ultimately the employee chooses whether or not they will use contraception.

Fringe-ology

I heard an interview with Steve Volk, author of Fringe-ology, on the radio the other day. You can go listen to the interviewand watch the book trailer here.

I have to read this book, and I am adding his blog to my blogroll. I just love his common sense approach. He believes that sometimes we need to accept the fact that we just don’t know. At least not yet. He got frustrated with extreme believers and skeptic alike. Basically people who have to say or think they have all the answers, no matter what, and no matter how at odds their answers are with the evidence.

It is very nice to hear someone else say they die-hard skeptics are very much like radical believers, and that it requires an extreme stretch of the imagination to believe the explanations that they rely on to explain away any possibility of the paranormal.

He also says that paranormal events and entities are not necessarily supernatural. Just because our current science can’t measure or explain something, does not mean it doesn’t exist or that it is supernatural. Science is constantly evolving.

We don’t know everything yet. How hard is that for people to understand? Or is it just too scary for some people to live with?

For those who are raising an eyebrow at the name alone, he doesn’t say that you have to believe anything in particular to disagree with the skeptics. He is not saying that just because the skeptics’ explanation doesn’t add up, that the UFO theory is the automatic solution. He simply says that it is OK to accept the fact that there are some things we haven’t figured out yet and cannot explain. We

don’t have all the facts about everything.

There doesn’t always have to be an answer. Not today, at least. I like that.

“My Cause is Better than Your Cause” Syndrome

This is something I see and hear a lot of, and it really bothers me. Some issue or cause comes up, and someone or some group is trying to do some good, and inevitably someone pipes up with the suggestion or condemnation that “cause X” is less worthy than some other cause and that those who help out should be helping with something else.

Sometimes it is a thoughtful suggestion that I can sympathize and generally agree with. For instance, Americans probably should help starving and underprivileged kids in the U.S. before devoting their resources to other countries. For that matter, I personally believe that it’s best to start with your own family and friends, then branch out to your local community, and so on.

But, that’s just how I feel and how I choose to do things. I don’t pass judgment on people who choose to do something, anything, out of kindness. I do feel that my opinion and choices matter when it comes to what the government does with my money, but that’s a different subject.

In other instances it is more arrogant and insulting. Yes, there are people who will say that if you support animal welfare projects you are a piece of shit because no one should do anything for animals until all humans have been helped. Or, the people who think you should divert your donations to organizations that “help the environment” or work for world peace, or whatever. There are even people who believe that other individuals should only be allowed to give to certain causes.

That’s where I lose it.

We could argue all day long about which causes “should” be the priority, but the reality is that people give the most and give the best to the causes that move them and speak to them personally. We should be glad when anyone wants to do anything good and helpful. Trying to dictate to what and why a person chooses to give of themselves, and condemning them for their choices, only discourages people from doing anything good at all.

So, here’s my point (or one of them, anyway). When you do something that other people say you should do, or that you merely feel obligated to do, it’s usually half-assed. When you do something you are passionate about, it’s full-on and effective. And, you feel better about it. It’s actually rewarding and that trickles down to your personal goodness and how you treat those around you.

I would rather see people being passionate and effective in causes that don’t mean much, or anything, to me than a bunch of mediocre, ineffective crap going to the things I find most important.

Feral Cat Emergency, Helping Only Takes a Few Seconds of Your Time

I had planned to post something that would give you more of a taste for the general flavor of my blog as my first real post, but this is an urgent matter that cannot wait…

This is a feral cat emergency in Waco, TX. You cn do something to help with just a few seconds of your time.

From The Petition Site:

In the summer of 2007, Lions Club granted Heart of Texas Feral Friends access to Lions Park so our volunteers could spay/neuter and vaccinate the park’s cats through a process called Trap-Neuter-Return (TNR).

Our volunteers helped TNR more than 40 cats, at NO COST to Lions Club. Today, there are only 9 TNR cats living at the park, all are spayed or neutered, vaccinated against rabies, and cared for daily by volunteers.

Now, five years later, Waco Lions Club board members voted to evict these 9 cats from Lions Park…

You can go read more and sign the petition here.

You can get updates on the situation and find out what you can do at the Heart of Texas Feral Friends website. This is the latest update:

Sun., Jan. 15 at 7 p.m.

It's outrageous!
"NO TRESPASSING" SIGNS HAVE BEEN POSTED at our "COMMUNITY" LIONS PARK,
preventing HOTFF Volunteers from feeding the 9 Park Cats.

Who would have expected this from a respected long-standing "service group"
towards a fellow volunteer group providing them a free program
on land leased to them by the City of Waco for the "public good"?

First Post

I have been thinking about creating this blog for a long time. I will be posting my thoughts on many subjects, book reviews, movie reviews, and stuff like that. You can expect a lot of cranky opinions and rants, as well as praise for things that make me happy.

I will post links to other people's articles and websites that I want to share with my readers. And, as a writer, I will probably engage in some shameless self-promotion.

The title has a history, and one day I may tell you about it.

It might help you to know that I have a tendency to write these things in chunks, as in a bunch of posts at once. Then I try to space them out using the scheduling option on posts. So, by the time you read a post my mood may have changed completely.